The present invention concerns a method for supplying measuring data of an apparatus for processing value documents of stipulated different processing types, and means for carrying out the method. Preferably, the supplied measuring data can be employable for adapting parameters of the apparatus.
Value documents are understood here to be sheet-shaped objects that represent for example a monetary value and hence should not be manufacturable arbitrarily by unauthorized persons. They hence have features that are not simple to manufacture, in particular to copy, whose presence is an indication of authenticity, i.e. manufacture by an authorized body. Important examples of such value documents are coupons, checks and in particular bank notes.
Value-document processing apparatuses, in particular bank-note processing apparatuses, classify value documents, in particular bank notes, with regard to the value-document type, in the case of bank notes the currency and/or the value, and/or the authenticity and/or the quality and/or the orientation. The orientation of a value document, assuming a rectangular value document, will hereinafter be understood to be one of the four possible positions that can be obtained by respectively rotating the value document around its longitudinal and transverse axes by 180°. The quality of a value document is understood to be in particular its condition; in the case of bank notes the condition can be given in particular by an association with classes such as “fit for circulation” and/or “unfit for circulation” and/or “damaged” or “damaged” in connection with the kind of damage. In dependence on the classification, the value documents can then for example be sorted and, where applicable, deposited in corresponding output regions. This will be explained by the example of value documents in the form of bank notes.
The classification is effected on the basis of different physical properties of the individual, i.e. respectively processed, bank note. Examples of such physical properties are optical properties, in particular color properties, magnetic properties or ultrasonic properties.
Upon the processing of bank notes in bank-note processing apparatuses, measuring data which are employed for the classification are generated by means of sensors on the basis of different physical properties of the individual bank note, i.e. the bank note that is respectively processed or to be processed. The measuring data of a respective sensor describe the physical property or properties captured by the respective sensor. Measuring data will hereinafter be understood in general to be in particular raw data formed by a sensor, which are unprocessed apart from some processing operations in the sensor and/or corrections, in particular also with regard to calibration, removal of noise components or background components.
The measuring data delivered by the sensors are evaluated in a connected evaluation device, which can also be configured as a control and evaluation device. Upon said evaluation, bank-note features characterizing the bank-note type, the authenticity and the quality of the bank note are determined by suitable evaluation methods. In dependence on the determined bank-note features there is then computed by the evaluation device a classification result which consequently determines which output pocket of the bank-note processing apparatus the bank note is to be deposited in. When the evaluation device is configured as a control and evaluation device, the latter can actuate a transport device of the bank-note processing apparatus in dependence on the classification result.
The evaluation methods and the establishment of the classification result must be adapted to the type of the bank notes to be processed and also to the demands of the operators of bank-note processing apparatuses. For this purpose, the evaluation device, preferably at least one evaluation program running therein, is parameterizable, i.e. there are classification parameters present whose values can be stipulated and which are employed upon the evaluation and classification or the establishment of the classification result; said adapting of the classification parameter values, also designated as adapting of the classification parameters, will hereinafter be designated as adaptation.
To establish appropriate classification parameters, the measuring data of corresponding, suitably stipulated bank notes are frequently employed for adapting the classification parameters. More precisely, corresponding measuring data are captured and stored with the bank-note processing apparatus for the stipulated bank notes upon a measuring-data acquisition in a first step. Said measuring data are then utilized for establishing the classification parameter values in a second step.
To enable good parameterization, the measuring-data acquisition frequently involves capturing measuring data for bank notes that differ in various processing properties, for example their type, in particular currency and/or value, their quality or condition, their authenticity and/or the orientation in which they are transported past the sensors in the value-document processing apparatus.
For the subsequent establishment of parameters it is then necessary that the measuring data for the various processing properties can be accessed in a targeted manner. The measuring data must thus be stored in accordingly different data structures, e.g. files. Moreover, the information about which bank note the measuring data were established for must additionally be available.